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THE  CENTENARY  MOVEMENT 
OF   THOUGHT 


An  Address 

Delivered  before  the  Ohio  State  University 

AT    THE 

Commencement  held  June  19,  1889 


BY 

JACOB  GOULD  SCHURMAN 

Sage  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Cornell  University 


Pl'IlHSHED    nV    THE    OhIO   StATE    UNIVERSITY 

j COLUMBUS 


;V^7 


THE 


Centenary   Movement    of  Thought. 


The  recent  celebration  of  the  inauguration  of  Washington 
has  brought  to  a  close  the  series  of  centennial  celebrations 
which  began  thirteen  years  ago  with  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  The  commemorative  ceremonies,  spectacles, 
and  festivities,  may  sometimes  have  been  unmeaning,  and  no 
one  will  pretend  they  have  not  at  times  been  marred  by  bad 
taste.  There  is  no  movement  without  friction.  And  every 
noble  exertion  may  run  by  excess  into  its  opposite.  But,  as 
human  affairs  go,  that  man  is  surely  not  to  be  envied  who  has 
failed  to  derive  from  these  national  commemorations  matter  for 
edification  and  calm  assurance.  It  is  always  a  sign  of  healthy 
life  when  a  nation  rehearses  to  itself  and  glorifies  the  noble 
deeds  which  the  fathers  did  in  the  days  of  old.  In  the  ideal 
there  is  life  forever.  And  as  I  have  seen  the  nation  nourish  its 
spirit  on  the  rich  memories  of  its  founders,  and  dedicate  itself 
anew  to  the  divine  ideas  they  sealed  upon  this  continent  with 
their  blood,  I  have  felt  that,  hoWever  serious,  new,  and  perplexing 


411281 


were  the  problems  of  modern  life,  a  redeeming  ardor  from  the 
past  would  enter  into  the  present,  and  the  second  century  of  the 
Republic's  existence  be  suffused  with  a  glory  overshadowing 
even  that  of  the  first. 

The  institution  of  the  centennial  celebrations,  and  the 
hearty  manner  in  which  they  were  observed,  indicate  that  the 
political  instincts  of  the  American  people  are  sound  and  healthy. 
But  man  is  a  rational  as  well  as  a  political  animal.  And  reason 
is  the  crowning  glory  of  the  world.  Above  all  things,  therefore, 
the  movements  of  thought  deserve  frequent  recollection  and 
examination.  The  tree  of  knowledge,  like  the  tree  of  life, 
draws  its  vitality  from  the  generations  that  are  past.  We  are 
and  shall  be  largely  what  the  spiritual  currents  of  the  ages  make 
us.  In  this  process  freedom  and  necessity  are  at  one.  The 
individual  is  moulded  by  the  invisible  but  not  less  real  spirit  of 
his  race  to  issues  in  which  he  finds  with  joy  the  realization  of 
his  highest  self.  Surely,  then,  nothing  can  more  closely  touch 
us  than  the  stirrings  of  that  organism  of  thought  and  sentiment 
in  which  our  fathers  and  our  fathers'  fathers  have  lived  and 
moved  and  had  their  being.  Children  of  the  Zeitgeist  we  would 
follow  its  movements  over  the  century.  As  the  survey  is  broad, 
and  the  time  short,  we  must  not  allow  eddies  and  side  currents 
to  draw  us  from  the  main  channel,  even  though  at  times  it 
appears  no  deeper  than  the  adjacent  river-bed,  or  even  loses 
itself  altogether  in  the  sand. 

The  most  obvious  difference  between  the  culture  of  to-day 
and   that  of  the   early  days  of  the  Republic  is  a  characteristic 


that  renders  the  undertaking  upon  which  I  have  perhaps  rashly 
ventured,  all  but  impossible.  "  Many  shall  run  to  and  fro,  and 
knowledge  shall  be  increa.sed,"  said  the  prophet ;  and  our  century 
has  been  destined  to  fulfill  the  prediction.  It  is  true  that  the 
mediaeval  endeavor  to  "shut  up  the  words,  and  seal  the  book, 
even  to  the  time  of  the  end  "  had  collapsed  as  early  as  the 
fifteenth  century,  when  the  infinite  mystery  and  splendors  of 
the  world  broke  upon  the  benighted  spirit  of  the  West  as 
centuries  before  they  had  lain  reflected  in  the  clear  eye  of  the 
all-seeing  Greek.  But  Hellenic  science  had  been  for  the  most 
part  swallowed  up  of  time  ;  and  speculation  reeled  for  want  of 
a  solid  basis.  That  in  these  circumstances  the  literature  of 
classic  antiquity  should  have  formed  the  staple  of  higher  culture 
in  the  sixteenth  century  was  as  natural  and  inevitable  as  its 
pretensions  in  the  nineteenth,  after  modern  literature  and 
science  had  grown  up,  were  anachronistic  and  absurd.  The 
seventeenth  century  forms  an  ever  memorable  epoch  in  the 
history  of  mankind.  It  witnessed  the  triumph  of  the  sublime 
astronomical  system  of  Copernicus  and  Galileo,  a  system  which, 
while  it  illustrated  the  might  of  human  reason,  was  infinitely 
humbling  to  human  pride.  With  the  geocentric  theory  fell  the 
venerable  belief  that  the  children  of  earth  were  the  final  object 
of  creation.  It  was  reserved  for  Darwin  to  determine  man's 
position  in  the  organic  series.  But  his  place  in  the  vast 
illimitable  universe  of  space  was  settled  once  for  all  by  the 
physicists  and  astronoii.ers  whose  discoveries  culminated  two 
hundred  years  ago  in  the  "  P|!rincipia  "  of  Newton.    To  the  same 


century  belong  the  physiology  of  Harvey,  the  new  anatomy 
of  the  French  and  Italian  schools,  the  experimental  science  of 
Boyle,  Pascal,  and  Torricelli,  the  analytical  geometry  and 
calculus  of  Descartes,  Newton  and  Leibnitz.  Yet,  notwith- 
standing this  enormous  accumulation  of  scientific  treasure, 
it  was  still  possible  for  a  single  mind  to  compass  it  all.  I 
remember  Mr.  Gladstone  telling  a  body  of  students,  of  whom 
I  was  one,  that  Leibnitz  was  the  last  of  the  intellectual 
heroes  who  mastered  the  entire  realm  of  the  knowable. 
Leibnitz  died  in  1716.  But  I  believe  the  feat  could  have  been 
accomplished  even  in  the  last  third  ot  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury by  a  genius  like  Goethe  had  he  only  possessed  the  ency- 
clopaedic taste,  and  it  was  to  a  very  considerable  extent  actually 
achieved  by  Kant,  who,  however,  lacked  the  literary  and  artis- 
tic sense  of  which  Goethe  was  the  supreme  embodiment.  Such 
universality  of  knowledge  was  the  ideal  of  the  philosopher  of 
the  American  Revolution.  The  University  of  Virginia  still 
preserves  a  manuscript  volume  of  its  founder's,  containing  a  list 
of  books  and  directions  for  the  library ;  and  it  is  refreshing  for 
the  oppressed  specialist  of  the  present  day  to  note  the  air  of  self- 
confident  omniscience  with  which  Jefferson  causes  all  human 
knowledge  to  pass  before  him,  and,  like  a  true  son  of  the 
Parisian  Aufklaritng^  pronounces  it  all  very  good,  except  met- 
aphysics ! 

Metaphysics  is  only  an  attempt  to  focus  the  scattered  rays 
of  human  knowledge.  Consciously  or  unconsciously  every 
man  is  a  metaphysician.     Jefferson  did  not  feci  the  need  of  a 


conscious  system,  because  he  lived  in  an  age  of  unbroken  light. 
But  the  year  that  heard  the  Declaration  of  Independence  wit- 
nessed also  the  publication  of  the  "  Wealth  of  Nations." 
Immortal  products  of  human  genius,  they  mark  also  the  ar- 
rival of  the  age  of  democracy  and  of  industry — twin  daughters 
of  the  rights  of  man.  The  realm  of  letters  had  always  been  a 
republic  ;  but  the  incorporation  of  science  has  made  the  circle 
of  culture  wider,  less  exclusive  than  before.  It  has  also  brought 
about  and  necessitated,  in  the  intellectual  world,  that  division 
and  co-operation  of  labor,  whose  advantages  in  manual  opera- 
tions Adam  Smith  characteristically  illustrated  from  the  making 
of  a  pin.  Human  power  is  limited ;  but  by  practice  everybody 
can  learn  to  do  at  least  one  thing  well.  The  success  of  a  mining 
or  manufacturing  enterprise  depends  upon  the  organization  of 
the  skill  of  the  workmen.  The  vast  enlargement  of  the  bound- 
aries of  knowledge  in  modern  times  is  due  to  specialized  work 
on  the  part  of  scientists  and  co-operation  with  one  another  in 
manipulating  results.  In  the  warfare  with  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness each  soldier  chooses  his  own  point  of  attack;  but  he 
waves  his  torch  to  tell  his  comrades  where  he  stands  and 
what  he  has  done,  and  the  ranks  are  kept  filled  as  the 
ever  growing  circle  advances.  Thus  the  mind  of  man  expands 
apace.  But  the  culture  of  any  individual  man  is  apt  to  be 
restricted,  subdued  to  what  it  works  in.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  century,  Alexander  von  Humboldt  expatiated  at  large  over 
the  broad  domain  of  the  sciences  of  nature ;  at  its  close,  Asa 
Gray  had  mastered  a  part  of  one  divisioir  of  the  single  science 


8 

of  botany.  In  the  historical  sciences,  too,  the  growth  of 
knowledge  in  the  race  has  gone  on  along  with  the  specialization 
of  knowledge  in  the  indiTidual.  Since,  therefore,  the  educated 
man  in  modern  times,  be  he  humanist  or  naturalist,  must 
become  a  specialist,  it  would  seem  very  desirable  in  the  higher 
education  of  our  youth  that  some  diversity  of  subjects  should 
be  required.  We  are  in  danger  of  sacrificing  breadth  to  intensity 
of  culture.  And  for  my  own  part,  I  look  with  some  alarm  on 
the  present  fashion  of  encouraging  students  no  longer  to  take 
a  general  course  in  language,  literature,  history,  mathematics, 
science,  and  philosophy,  the  educational  value  of  which  has 
been  attested  by  experience,  but  to  pass  their  green  and  salad 
days  in  mimicking  the  original  research  of  a  Faraday  or  a 
Darwin.  For  the  race  education  consists  in  the  discovery  of 
something  new  ;  for  the  individual  this  cannot  begin  with  profit 
until  he  is  in  possession  of  some  considerable  portion  of  the 
treasure  mankind  has  stored  up.  Our  educationists  are  over- 
looking the  dependence  of  reproduction  upon  assimilation. 
There  can  be  no  creation,  even  in  the  realm  of  mind,  without 
materials.  These  "  original  investigations "  which  callow 
youth  are  now-a-days  so  often  required  to  make  on  subjects  no 
mortal  has  ever  thought  of  before,  or  is  likely  to  think  of  again, 
have  at  least  the  merit  of  novelty,  and  so  they  often  pass  for 
flights  of  genius.  But  even  genius  needs  an  atmosphere. 
There  is  no  such  truly  original  investigator  in  the  world  as  the 
baby.  But  the  baby  would  not  succeed  better  by  refusing  his 
mother's  milk. 


9 

I  have  been  speaking  generally  of  the  vast  multiplication 
and  specialization  of  knowledge  dnring  the  century.  It  would 
be  obviously  impossible  here  and  now  to  describe  the  process 
in  all  its  details.  *But  as  the  growth  of  the  sciences  consists  in 
the  discovery  of  more  general  laws,  which  bind  together  the 
facts  and  laws  already  established,  the  scientific  achievements 
of  the  century  may  be  illustrated  by  glancing  at  some  of  these 
ultimate  generalizations.  In  the  natural  and  physical  sciences 
the  theory  of  evolution  and  the  law  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  would  suggest  themselves  to  everybody ;  and  with  these, 
Professor  Huxley,  in  his  masterly  sketch  of  the  advance  ot 
science  in  the  Victorian  period,  associates  the  theory  of  the 
molecular  constitution  of  matter.  These  may  be  briefly 
described  before  endeavoring  to  follow  the  movement  of  the 
historical  and  philosophical  sciences,  to  which  must  be  added 
theology,  once  the  proud  queen  of  all. 

What  are  things  made  of?  is  one  of  the  first  questions  of 
children  and  of  thinkers.  In  the  infancy  of  human  thought 
this  germinal  principle  was  sought  in  concrete  substances  like 
water,  air,  and  fire  ;  and  at  a  later  stage  in  such  abstractions  as 
number  and  infinity.  But  the  doctrine  that  matter  consisted  of 
minute  indivisible  particles  diffused  through  empty  space, 
carries  us  back  to  the  fifth  century  before  Christ.  This  was  the 
famous  atomic  theory  of  Leucippus  and  Democritus,  which, 
after  agitating  the  ancient  world,  has  been  a  fermenting 
principle  in  the  modern  almost  since  the  downfall  of  scholas- 
ticism, and  which,  in  our  own  century,  seemed  to  gain  renewed 


10 

confirmation  from  the  chemical  discoveries  of  Dalton.  But 
from  the  very  first  the  atomism  of  Democritus  has  been  con- 
fronted by  an  antagonistic  theory,  towards  wliich  modern 
chemistry  seems  to  be  drifting.  This  science  is  admirably 
typical  of  the  centenary  growth  of  knowledge.  It  was  in  1789 
that  Lavoisier  published  his  Traile  elemcnfaire^  which  imparted 
a  new  spirit  to  the  young  and  rising  science  of  chemistry.  The 
subsequent  period  has  been  devoted  to  observation  of  the 
phenomena  exhibited  by  elements  and  their  compounds,  and  to 
discovery  of  the  laws  of  their  combination  and  interaction.  But 
in  our  own  day  the  purely  empirical  stage  is  past ;  and  the 
chemist,  like  the  astronomer,  is  able  to  predict  from  present 
phenomena  the  character  of  future  phenomena.  His  work  is 
largely  synthetic.  Theoretically  he  sees  the  possibility  of  certain 
non-existent  compounds,  and  with  creative  insight  he  calls 
them  into  being.  As  the  mathematics  of  molar  motion  had 
unveiled  the  heavens  and  laid  bare  the  mysteries  of  the  infi- 
nitely great,  so  the  mathematics  of  molecular  motion  is  to-day 
reading  the  secrets  of  the  infinitely  little,  nay,  sketching  the 
architecture  of  that  impalpable  world  which  eye  has  not  seen 
nor  ear  heard  But  the  mind  of  man  had  already  conceived  it. 
For  the  latest  report  of  the  chemist  is  in  singular  accord  with 
the  theory  of  Aristotle.  It  supposes  a  homogeneous  ethereal 
substance  containing  permanent  whirlpools  or  vortices ;  and 
it  affirms  that  the  elementary  units  of  the  material  world  may 
be  resolved  into  these  vortices  whose  properties  depend  on  theii 
actual  and  potential  modes  of  motion.  This  theory  of  the 
dynamical  constitution  of  matter,  which  turns  chemistry  intoa 
branch  of  mathematical  physics,  is  one  of  the  great  scientific 
achievements  of  the  age.  Nor  does  its  anticipation  by  Aristotle 
detract  from  the  renown  of  chemistry.     The  modern  scientist 


11 

has  embodied  the  speculative  conception  of  the  philosopher  in 
a  larger  experience,  illuminated  it  by  the  evidence  ot  mathe- 
matics, and  expanded  it  into  deductions  that  have  stood  the 
test  of  experimental  verification.  As  the  theory  passes  from 
the  laboratory  to  the  school,  as  it  filters  in  dilution  through  the 
press,  it  is  destined  to  effect  a  change  in  popular  thought  not 
unlike  that  produced  by  the  astronomy  of  Copernicus.  How 
startling  to  conceive  of  dead  material  things  which  we  have 
always  thought  real  solely  because  they  are  extended  and  solid, 
as  absolutely  nothing  but  invisible  whirls  of  energy ! 

The  theory  of  the  molecular  constitution  of  matter  is  the 
latest  solution  of  the  world-old  problem  what  things  are  made 
of.  But  as  things  exist,  so  they  cease  to  exist,  or  undergo 
change.  And  changes  are  not  more  obvious  to  us  than  they 
were  to  primitive  man  ten  thousand  or  a  hundred  thousand 
years  ago.  Whether  our  ancestors  hid  themselves  in  lonely 
caves  to  escape  the  carnage  of  the  bear  and  mammoth,  or 
wandered  in  quest  of  shell-fish  along  desolate  shores  where 
winds  and  waves  made  wild  commotion,  or  sat  amidst  their 
flocks  and  herds  watching  in  awe-struck  wonder  the  regular 
march  of  Orion,  Arcturus,  and  the  Pleiades,  they  saw,  as  we 
see,  a  world  where  nothing  is  at  rest,  where  all  things  change, 
where  birth  seems  only  for  the  sake  of  death,  and  life  is  not  so 
much  a  state  of  being  as  a  constant  process  of  becoming.  Of 
course,  they  interpreted  the  universe  by  themselves.  Of  course, 
they  attributed  change  to  personal  volition.  They  saw  behind 
the  shifting  procession  of  natural  events  powers  like  them- 
selves, though  greater.  And  this  primitive  mythological  theory 
of  causation  was  not  completely  vanquished  by  the  science  of 
the  Greeks.  Though  no  place  was  left  for  it  in  the  atomistic 
hypothesis  of  Democritus,  it  is  true  that,  broadly  speaking,  mod- 


12 

erii  scientific  thought  is  distinguished  from  earlier  by  its  rejec- 
tion of  all  causes  except  known  physical  causes  in  the  explana- 
tion of  nature,  and  by  its  possession  of  the  true  laws  of  motion  and 
equilibrium  along  with  the  numerous  deductions  to  which  they 
have  led  since  first  enunciated  by  Galileo  and  Newton.  These 
laws,  allied  with  mathematics  in  a  fruitful  union,  have  gener- 
ated the  ideal  towards  which  all  the  sciences  of  nature  are- to- 
day restlessly  striving.  Their  goal  is  nothing  less  than  the  de- 
duction of  all  the  phenomena  of  material  bodies  from  mathe- 
matico-physical  first  principles.  The  scientist  is  not  satisfied 
with  the  ascertainment  of  facts  and  their  laws ;  he  goes  on  to 
refer  them  to  higher  and  ever  higher  laws,  until  he  has  forged 
a  chain  of  demonstration  connecting  them  with  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  statics  and  dynamics.  He  believes  there  is  a  mathe- 
matical formula,  could  human  wit  but  find  it  out,  that  would 
express  the  present  condition  of  the  material  world  and  all  that 
it  contains,  a  formula  from  which  its  subsequent  phases  could 
all  be  deduced  and  predicted,  from  the  fall  of  a  tree  or  the  over- 
flow of  a  river  to  the  inundation  of  a  continent  or  the  collapse 
of  the  sun.  The  rise  of  this  scientific  ideal  was  heralded  by 
Descartes  and  Hobbes.  Its  realization  has  been  measurably 
approached  since  1843,  by  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy,  which  is  a  fitting  climax  to  the  physical 
laws  established  in  the  last  three  centuries. 

The  mathematicians  and  physicists  of  the  seventeenth 
century  had  determined  the  laws  of  molar  motion,  the  laws, 
that  is,  governing  the  movements  of  masses,  whether  terrestial 
or  celestial ;  but  the  ])henomena  of  heat,  liglil,  electricity  and 
magnetism,  which  do  not  depend  njion  molar  motion,  remained 
without  any  satisfactory  explanation  until  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury.    The  first  step  towards  a  sound  theory  was  the  discovery 


13 

of  the  correlation  of  the  forces  at  work.  Any  one  of  them,  it 
was  found,  could  be  transformed  into  any  other,  or  all  alike  de- 
rived from  a  common  source.  It  was  next  experimentally  dem- 
onstrated that  there  existed  a  definite  relation  between  heat 
and  mechanical  work.  And  it  was  also  shown  that  molar  motion 
re-appears  as  molecular  motion,  or  heat,  without  any  loss  of 
energy,  when  a  moving  body  is  brought  to  rest  by  friction  or 
collision.  These  truths  contain  the  law  of  the  conservation  of 
energy.  "  The  total  energy  of  any  body  or  system  of  bodies  is 
a  quantity  which  can  neither  be  increased  nor  diminished  by 
any  mutual  action  of  such  bodies,  though  it  may  be  transformed 
into  any  one  of  the  forms  of  which  energy  is  susceptible. "  When 
you  raise  a  stone  from  the  earth  the  energy  you  expend  is  not 
lost ;  it  is  potential  in  the  stone  as  held  in  the  air,  and  is  exactly 
reproduced  by  its  fall.  At  every  moment  of  the  process  the 
capital  stock  of  energy  remained  the  same.  And  this  is  the 
history  of  all  sensible  existence.  Force  is  constant  and  inde- 
structible, but  it  undergoes  continuous  redistribution  and 
transformation.  If  the  matter  composing  our  solar  system 
originally  existed  in  a  diffused  or  nebulous  state,  its  stock  of 
energy  was  the  same  as  at  present,  and  the  force  released  by 
the  precipitation  of  nebulous  particles  into  solid  bodies  has 
been  radiated  in  the  form  of  heat  and  light.  Some  of  this  heat 
is  still  imprisoned  within  our  earth,  the  whole  of  which  was  once 
a  mass  of  molten  matter.  And  it  occasionally  manifests  itself  in 
earthquakes  and  volcanic  eruptions.  Thus,  throughout  the 
entire  physical  universe  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is 
found  to  hold  good.  The  rains,  rivers,  winds  and  waves,  which 
slowly  wear  away  continents  and  fill  up  seas,  execute  simply  the 
powers  committed  to  them  by  the  sun,  when  they  first  rose  to 
vapory  life   beneath    his  genial   rays.     In    the   physiology  of 


14 

plants  and  animals  the  same  transformation  and  equivalence  of 
forces  has  been  demonstrated.  And  a  Huxley  or  a  Helmholtz 
would  find  no  difficulty  in  tracing  to  solar  radiations  the  cere- 
bral, nervous,  and  muscular  energy  I  am  now  exerting.  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  has  gone  further.  He  professes  to  see  in 
modes  of  consciousness  transformations  of  physical  forces  in 
obedience  to  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy.  But  this 
law  has  meaning  and  application  only  where  there  is  motion. 
And,  though  consciousness  is  connected  with  cerebral  changes 
which  must  conform  to  the  laws  of  physics,  consciousness 
itself  is  not  amotion  on  anything  like'  a  motion.  So  that  there 
is  no  more  justification  to-day  than  there  ever  was  before  for 
invading  the  domain  of  mind  with  categories  and  standards 
borrowed  from  the  material  world.  The  subject  of  knowledge 
is  impassably  separated  from  the  object  of  knowledge.  The 
law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is  valid  for  the  material 
world  alone.  Mr.  Spencer's  further  application  of  it  to  mind 
is  one  of  the  many  instances  in  his  comprehensive  philosophy 
in  which  pet  generalizations  are  allowed  to  eviscerate  facts  they 
are  inadequate  to  explain.  This  is  why  Darwin,  the  fairest 
critic  of  our  century,  writes  to  his  friends :  "  Such  parts  of  H. 
Spencer  as  I  have  read  with  care  impress  my  mind  with  the 
idea  of  his  inexhaustible  wealth  of  suggestion,  but  never  con- 
vince me.  *  *  *  *  If  he  had  trained  himself  to  observe 
more,  even  if  at  the  expense,  by  the  loss  of  balancemcnt,  of 
some  loss  of  thinking  power,  he  would  have  been  a  wonderful 
man." 

This  brings  us  to  the  third  great  generalization  of  our  cen- 
tury, the  theory  of  physical  evolution.  In  its  most  general 
form  the  theory  is  an  old  one.  The  belief  in  the  transfor- 
mation   of    species    is    common    among    savages,    who    have 


15 

many  legends  of  the  metamorphosis  of  men  into  wild  beasts. 
And  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  Greeks  was  evolutionary. 
Evolution  means  that  things  were  not  once  for  all  created  as 
we  now  see  them,  but  have  reached  their  present  condition 
only  after  passing  through  lower  phases,  and  gradually 
ascending  to  higher.  For  a  thousand  years,  from  the  time  of 
Thales  to  the  close  of  the  schools  under  the  Empire,  this  was 
the  constant  point  of  view  of  Hellenic  thinkers,  and  it  is 
nobly  enshrined  in  the  immortal  system  of  Aristotle.  But  in 
the  following  centuries,  as  science  died  out,  as  communion 
with  the  living  facts  of  the  world  .gave  way  to  crude  and  literal 
interpretation  of  the  books  in  which  Hebrew  seers  and  poets 
had  set  down  in  lofty  imagery  their  impressions  of  creation 
and  divine  providence,  the  evolutionary  point  of  view  was  lost, 
and  for  the  Hellenic  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  the  world  with 
its  endless  series  of  evolutions  and  dissolutions  there  was  sub- 
stituted the  hard  dogma  of  instantaneous  creation  some  few 
thousand  years  before.  It  was,  therefore,  something  like  a 
new  discovery  when  in  the  eighteenth  century  Kant  traced  the 
evolution  of  the  solar  system  from  a  primitive  nebula  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  laws  of  Newtonian  physics.  But  the  con- 
ception of  the  practically  infinite  duration  of  the  world  in  past 
time  was  first  brought  home  to  the  modern  mind  by  the  publi- 
cation in  1830  of  Lyell's  "Principles  of  Geology."  In 
opposition  to  the  catastrophists,  Lyell  referred  the  forma- 
tion of  the  crust  of  the  earth  to  purely  natural  causes,  whose 
adequacy,  however,  depended  upon  the  postutate  of  the  lapse 
of  vast  geological  ages  since  the  beginning.  His  theory  tri- 
umphed. It  satisfied  the  facts,  and  the  demands  of  reason  too. 
But  if  natural  causes  can  account  for  the  inorganic  world, 
what  of  the  organic  ?  > 


16 

Thus  the  question  was  shaping  itself  in  the  mind  of 
Darwin.  That  evolution  was  the  process  of  the  living  world 
Goethe  and  Ivamarck  had  shown  at  the  close  of  the  preceding 
century.  But  the  hozv  and  the  why  of  organic  evolution  was 
still  a  mystery.  Darwin  cleared  it  up  by  his  theory  of  natural 
selection  or  survival  of  the  fittest.  This  theory  was  suggested 
to  Darwin  by  his  "  long  continued  study  of  the  works  of  (and 
converse  with)  agriculturists  and  horticulturists,"  as  he 
wrote  to  Asa  Gray,  before  it  was  given  to  the  world.  Breeders 
by  conscious  selection  produce  new  varieties.  The  variations 
are  given  by  nature.  What  man  does  is  to  select  and  perpetu- 
ate them  in  preference  to  others.  Now  in  the  case  of  undo- 
mesticated  animals  and  plants,  the  perpetuation  of  certain 
varieties  is  brought  about  by  the  struggle  for  existence,  which 
is  the  inevitable  result  of  the  fecundity  of  living  organisms, 
which  increase,  as  Malthus  had  shown  in  the  case  of  man,  far 
beyond  the  means  of  subsistence.  Darwin  does  not  prove  that 
the  earth  has  been  inhabited  successively  by  ascending  species 
of  living  beings.  That  is  an  historical  fact  of  which  geology 
leaves  no  room  to  doubt.  Nor  is  Darwin  father  of  the  idea 
that  the  higher  are  developed  from  the  lower,  and  that  no 
species  is  fixed  and  immutable.  It  is  true  that  in  the  battle 
waged  over  the  "  Origin  of  Species,"  Darwin  sometimes 
limited  his  own  achievement,  as  his  "  Life  and  Letters"  show,  to 
a  refutation  of  the  dogma  that  species  were  immutable 
creations.  And  no  doubt  he  did  more  than  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors to  supplant  this  belief.  But  he  did  it,  not  merely  by 
ascerting  that  species  have  descended  from  other  species,  but 
by  exhibiting  the  causes  which  led  to  their  modification. 
Others  before  him  had  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  transforma- 
tion.    He  first  discerned   in  the  amazing  fecundity  of  living 


17 

beings,  their  minute  differences  from  one  another,  and  the 
selective  influence  of  environment,  the  factors  and  processes 
by  which  new  species  are  developed  out  of  earlier  ones.  This 
is  the  essence  of  Darwinism.  All  else  is  consequence  or  con- 
comitant. How  important  this  biological  theory  was  felt  to  be 
is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  in  popular  speech  Darwinism  is 
synonymous  with  evolution  in  general.  And  both  are  to-day 
accepted,  in  substance  at  least.  Thirty  years  ago  our  fathers 
were  quarreling  over  the  question  whether  it  was  better  to  be  , 
descendend  from  a  fallen  angel  or  a  climbing  monkey,  j  ^ 
To-day  the  issue  scarcely  touches  us ;  and  we  feel  that  it  sig-  "^ 

nifies  little  how  we  may  have  been  begotten,  since  the  great 
matter  is  what  we  are  and  may  become.  For  us  evolution  is 
no  longer  regresssion  to  the  ape,  but  progression  towards  the 
truly  human,  till  it  merges  into  the  divine.  On  stepping 
stones  of  their  dead  selves  men  rise  to  higher  things. 

We  have  been  speaking  thus  far  of  modern  discoveries 
regarding  matter,  force,  and  life.  And  it  is  the  advance  of 
chemistry,  physics,  and  biology  which  most  strongly  impresses 
the  imagination,  because  of  their  application  in  relieving  the 
miseries  and  adding  to  the  comforts  and  conveniences  of  man's 
estate.  These  sciences  have  annihilated  space  and  time, 
revealed  a  new  heaven,  and  re-created  the  earth.  A  hundred 
years  ago  Washington  took  seven  days  to  go  from  Mt.  Vernon 
to  New  York  for  his  inauguration  ;  and  he  could  not  have  made 
the  journey  in  less  than  five  days  even  had  he  not  been  de- 
layed by  receptions.  But  in  that  time  you  could  in  this  age 
cross  the  ocean,  or  traverse  the  continent.  In  1791  Jefferson 
wrote  to  the  American  representatives  at  Paris  and  Madrid  that 
the  quickest  of  their  despatches  were  "  of  nine  weeks,  and  the 
longest  of  near  eighteen  weeks  coming."     To-day  the  telegraph 


18 

flashes  them  under  the  ocean  in  as  many  minutes.  Railroads, 
steamers,  and  telegraph  lines  are  the  nervous  system  with 
which  modern  science  has  endowed  the  hitherto  unfeeling  earth, 
and  transformed  its  divided  provinces  and  separated  continents 
into  a  single  sentient  organism.  Intercourse  has  removed  preju- 
dices, allayed  passions,  and  established  order.  It  has  shown  to 
all  men  the  humanity  of  men.  The  old  divisions  between  Jew 
and  Gentile,  Greek  and  Barbarian,  Bond  and  Free,  had  long 
been  opposed  by  the  higher  conception  of  the  brotherhood  of 
man.  But  what  Stoicism  and  the  Church  failed  to  realize  has 
been  effected  by  the  intercourse  which  modern  science  first  ren- 
dered possible,  A  famine  in  India,  an  earthquake  in  China,  or 
a  flood  like  that  which  lately  devastated  the  valley  of  the 
Conemaugh,  sends  a  shock  of  sorrow  and  a  response  of  sym- 
pathy and  help  throughout  the  entire  world.  It  is  impossible  to 
overestimate  the  service  to  morals,  international  law,  and  prac- 
tical Christianity  of  those  scientific  appliances  which  have  over- 
come the  obstacles  set  by  nature  to  intercourse  between  man 
and  man.  This  achievement  of  our  century  will  not  be  dimmed 
by  any  other  in  the  moral  history  of  mankind.  And  beside  it 
we  can  lay  with  pride  our  physical  discoveries  and  inventions. 
Have  we  not  meted  out  Heaven  witl?  the  span,  and  compre- 
hended the  dust  of  the  earth  in  a  measure,  and  weighed  the 
mountains  in  scales  and  the  hills  in  a  balance  ?  Nay,  what 
Isaiah  could  not  conceive,  we  have  analyzed  the  matter  of  the 
sun  and  the  planets.  We  have  turned  the  darkness  of  mid- 
night into  solar  brilliancy.  Our  remotest  ancestors  were  prob- 
ably ignorant  of  the  uses  of  fire;  and  the  rude  drill,  by  which 
savages  produce  it,  is  supposed  to  represent  thousands  of  years 
of  invention.  From  that  to  the  flint  and  steel,  and  thence  to 
the  lucifer  match  was  the  work  of  centuries.     Our  own  gener- 


19 

ation,  however,  has,  by  the  use  of  electricity,  taken  a  stride 
which  belittles  all  the  gropings  of  previous  generations.  Nor 
is  it  otherwise  with  the  great  practical  arts  of  medicine,  agri- 
culture, and  manufacturing.  The  preservation  of  health  and 
the  healing  of  diseases  had  scarcely  advanced  beyond  the  stage 
at  which  the  (jreeks  left  them,  until  a  rational  basis  was  found  for 
them  in  modern  physiology  and  zoology.  Since  then  one  after 
another  of  the  scourges  flesh  is  heir  to  has  been  met  and  con- 
quered ;  and,  though  scientific  medicine  and  surgery  are  still  in 
their  infancy,  Koch's  germ  theory  of  disease  has  already  proved  a 
most  potent  and  promising  weapon  of  offense  and  defence,  while 
Lister's  antiseptic  method  has  probably  done  more  than  any 
other  invention  ever  made  to  alleviate  human  suffering.  Bacon, 
the  prophet  of  the  modern  scientific  world,  demanded  a  know- 
ledge that  should  bear  fruit  to  mankind.  His  hope  has  been 
fulfilled.  Nor  is  medicine  the  only  proof  of  it.  In  our  own  cen- 
tury agriculture,  too,  has  been  put  upon  a  scientific  basis.  And 
those  manufacturing  and  industrial  operations,  which  have 
transformed  the  face  of  the  modern  world,  superposed  a  new 
nature  upon  the  old,  and  even  reacted  upon  man,  its  creator, 
are,  in  large  part,  the  result  of  the  scientific  discoveries  and 
practical  inventions  of  the  last  hundred  years. 

Yet,  in  considering  the  centenary  movement  of  thought, 
we  should  leave  our  picture  very  incomplete  if  we  stopped  with 
these  conspicuous  features  of  the  scene.  "  In  the  universe 
there  is  nothing  great  but  man  ;  in  man  there  is  nothing  great 
but  mind."  And  the  century  which  has  witnessed  the  amazing 
growth  of  the  sciences  of  nature,  has  seen  a  complete  revolu- 
tion in  the  sciences  of  man.  A  new  conception  of  human  civ- 
ilization whereby  all  previous  history  is  rendered  obsolete  :  this 
is  the  characteristic  note  in  the  thought  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 


20 

tury.  The  conception  was  forced  upon  the  Anglo-Saxon 
mind  largely  by  the  victory  of  Darwinism,  which  is,  therefore, 
often  identified  with  it.  But  in  Germany,  the  natal  soil  of  the 
new  idea,  the  two  are  kept  distinct.  Biological  evolution  may 
or  may  not  be  explained  by  natural  selection ;  but  in  any  event 
it  is  onl)-  an  extension  to  animal  life  of  a  conception  and 
method  which  three  generations  of  German  investigators  had 
already  applied  with  great  success  to  human  history. 

Each  in  turn  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world  contribute 
their  central  ideas  to  the  thought  of  mankind.  Within  the  last 
four  hundred  years  Italy  has  given  us  Humanism,  Spain 
Dogmatism,  England  Empiricism,  and  France  Rationalism. 
The  national  point  of  view  is  determined  somewhat  by  native 
temper,  and  somewhat  by  the  preceding  condition  of  thought. 
The  Spanish  principle  of  authority  is  in  part  a  reaction  against 
the  sweetness  and  light,  and  license  too,  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance The  English  appeal  to  experience  and  the  French  appeal 
to  reason,  though  superficially  opposed,  are,  at  bottom,  compli- 
mentary aspects  of  a  single  tendency.  Both  make  for  the  liber- 
ation of  man  from  the  shackles  of  authority,  which  was  the  dom- 
inant idea  and  aim  of  the  eighteenth  century.  But  the  French- 
man wields  a  more  remorseless  logic  than  the  Englishman  ;  and 
he  shrinks  from  no  conclusions.  English  thinkers  had  made 
reservations  in  favor  of  established  institutions,  religious  and 
political.  But  the  school  of  Voltaire  had  no  reverence  for 
crown  or  mitre,  and  was  resolutely  set  on  absolute  emancipa- 
tion from  authority  and  conventionality.  Here,  as  before  and 
since,  it  was  the  mission  of  France  to  stand  for  ideas  which 
others  dared  not  follow ;  whence  her  proud  boast  of  saviour  of 
the  nations.  And  never  surely  will  it  be  forgotten,  so  long  as 
man  retains  memory  of  his  greatest  spiritual  blessings,  that  it 


21 

was  French  sinew  which  laid  low  the  thicket  of  shams  and 
conventionalities  that  impeded  hnman  progress,  and  French 
courage  that  bade  men  look  for  the  first  time  at  .the  facts  of  the 
world  and  of  life  in  the  pure  light  of  reason  alone.  But  this 
rationalism  was  fraught  with  two  serious  consequences.  It 
involved  a  complete  break  with  the  past  iiistory  of  mankind. 
And  it  left  society  an  atomistic  collection  of  individual  wills, 
each  proclaiming,  like  Coriolanus : 

"  I'll  never 
Be  such  a  gosling  to  obey  instinct,  but  stand 
As  if  man  were  another  of  himself 
And  knew  no  other  kin." 

These  disastrous  results  of  the  too  absolute  idea  of  France 
— I  mean  the  divorce  from  the  past,  the  substitution  of  individ- 
ual caprice  and  licence  for  authoritative  objective  law,  and  the 
suppression  of  the  instincts  and  sentiments  by  abstract  reason 
— were  overcome  by  the  pregnant  idea  with  which  in  the  last 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  Germany  revolutionized  all 
previous  notions  of  human  civilization,  and  marked  out  the 
course  of  historical  investigations  which  in  countless  lines  our 
century  has  been  following.  Do  you  ask  what  this  mighty 
leaven  is?  Behold  it  in  the  daily  bread  of  our  intellectual  life. 
Like  the  air  we  breathe,  it  is  an  unconscious  possession.  But 
whenever  we  speak  of  society  as  an  organism^  whenever  we 
conceive  of  languages,  customs,  laws,  institutions,  arts,  litera- 
tures, and  religions  as  organic  growllis^  whenever  we  regard 
the  whole  life  of  man— intellectual,  moral,  and  physical — as  a 
gradual  developjiicnt^  we  are  adopting  a  mode  of  thought  of 
which  our  race  had  no  inkling  before  the  last  third  of  the 
Eighteenth  century,   and  which   was    first  proclaimed  in   the 


22 

immortal  "Fragments"  of  the  youthful  Herder.  "This  to  be 
sure  is  a  madman  or  a  genius,"  exclaimed  Wieland.  "He  is  at 
any  rate  the  only  one  for  whom  it  is  worth  my  while  to  publish 
my  ideas,"  said  Lessing.  Now  the  message  with  which  this 
youthful  prodigy  electrified  his  contemporaries  is  the  German 
contribution  to  human  thought,  and  the  animating  principle 
of  its  movements  from  that  day  to  this.  It  consists  in  the 
substitution  of  fieri  for  facer c — of  spontaneous  evolution  for 
intentional  institution — as  leading  conception  in  the  study  and 
interpretation  of  human  society  and  human  civilization. 

Hence  a  new  attitude  toward  the  past.  Heirs  of  all  the 
ages,  we  see  in  all  the  past  generations  of  mankind  flesh  of 
our  flesh  and  spirit  of  our  spirit.  Under  the  German  idea  of 
organic  development,  the  most  savage  and  remote  tribes  be- 
come instinct  with  livijig  interest  to  us.  Like  the  foetus  in  the 
womb,  they  register  the  stages  of  our  own  existence  and  his- 
tory ;  and  we  linger  fondly  and  sympathetically  over  their 
growing  variations.  We  follow  them  through  savagery  to  bar- 
barism ;  and  as  they  kindle  the  lamps  of  civilization  at  Athens, 
at  Jerusalem,  and  at  Rome,  we  recognize  the  lights  that  have 
guided  later  generations,  and,  like  fixed  stars,  still  shed  their 
quickening  radiance  on  our  own.  For  us,  humanity  is  a  single 
organism,  and  we  have  burst  every  horizon  that  would  limit 
our  view  of  its  vast  illimitable  life. 

This  vital,  absorbing  interest  in  the  past  is,  I  repeat,  peculiar 
to  our  own  century.  Dr.  Johnson  dismi.s.sed  Hawkesworth's 
Voyages  with  the  contemptuous  remark,  "  One  set  of  .savages 
is  like  anotlu-r."  He  could  not  enter  into  the  life  of  societies 
different  from  his  own.  And,  though  the  eighteenth  centur)-  was 
not  behind  its  predecessors  in  classical  studies,  it  never  got  a 
firm  grasp  of  Greeks  and  Romans  as  living  men.     Dr.  John- 


23 

son,  as  became  the  apostle  of  Saxon  common  sense,  expressed, 
only  more  emphatically,  the  opinion  of  Voltaire,  when  he  said  : 
"  The  Athenians  of  the  age  of  Demosthenes  were  a  people  of 
brutes,  a  barbarous  people."  It  is  the  tendency  of  most  gene- 
rations to  regard  themselves  with  complacency,  but  it  was 
never  more  pronounced  than  in  the  age  of  rationalism  and 
"  polite  manners."  Their  moral  prejudices  blinded  them  to 
the  worth  of  the  past ;  and  even  had  they  felt  it,  how  could 
they  have  opened  the  closed  door  of  the  treasure  house  ? 

For  they  were  hindered  not  only  by  prejudice,  by  lack  of 
sympathy  with  a  culture,  religion,  and  politics  different  from 
their  own,  but  also  by  the  magnitude  of  the  undertaking  and 
the  scantiness  of  their  outfit  for  achieving  it.  During  the 
seventeenth  and  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  while 
other  literature  flourished,  history,  that  delicate  plant  that  lives 
only  in  the  air  of  freedom,  had  wilted  and  withered  until  it 
became  a  byword  and  a  reproach.  Meanwhile,  the  field  was 
constantly  enlarging.  And  though  more  remote  parts  had  been 
cultivated,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  most  of  the  ancient, 
and  many  of  the  modern  writers  had  limited  themselves  to 
contemporaneous  history.  Thucydides,  Tacitus,  and  Claren- 
don will  ever  remain  models  of  the  old  or  artistic  type  of  his- 
tory, which  aimed  chiefly  at  portraiture  and  reflection,  but 
they  could  be  of  little  service  to  a  writer,  who,  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  desired  to  reproduce  the  entire  social  life  of  Greece, 
Rome,  or  England.  Nor,  in  any  case,  could  such  a  writer  succeed. 
For,  apart  altogether  from  his  unscientific  conception  of 
society,  he  had  no  suspicion  of  the  variety  and  complexity 
of  historical  forces,  and  lacked  insight  into  the  laws  of  wealth 
and  industry.  It  was  men  of  historical  genius  and  vast  erudi- 
tion, it  was  Montesquieu  and  Gibbon,  who  ascribed  the  fall  of 


24 

Rome  to  such  causes  as  the  transportation  of  the  gold  and  silver 
to  Constantinople,  or  the  recusal  of  the  soldiers  to  wear 
defensive  armor. 

In  the  course  of  Providence  the  shortest  way  is  not  always 
a  straight  line.  But  though  the  time  of  waiting  was  long,  the 
human  mind  was  destined  ultimately  to  attain  truer  conceptions 
of  its  doings  and  manifestations  in  the  past.  With  the  appear- 
ance of  Herder  the  hour  had  arrived.  As  at  other  critical 
periods,  a  number  of  pregnant  circumstances  combined  to  make 
the  revolution  effective.  Herder  flung  out  his  new  conception 
of  mankind  as  a  growing  organism,  and  declared  that  "  the 
whole  history  of  humanity  is  pure  natural  history  of  human 
forces,  actions,  and  instincts,  according  to  place  and  time." 
Germany,  recovering  from  the  material,  intellectual,  and  moral 
exhaustion  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  had  entered  upon  that 
career  of  marvellous  scholarship  which  enabled  her  to  carry 
the  fruitful  idea  of  her  seer  into  every  department  of  knowl- 
edge. At  the  same  time  the  appearance  of  the  "  Wealth  of 
Nations,"  like  a  lamp  lit  in  a  dark  place,  at  once  illuminated 
many  of  the  deep,  obscure,  and  hitherto  unsolved  problems  of 
political  history,  the  study  of  which  has  ever  since  remained  in 
the  closest  alliance  with  economics.  Lastly,  that  great  upheaval 
of  society,  called  the  French  Revolution,  was  a  fearful  revelation 
of  social  forces  which  had  hitherto  lain  unsuspected  beneath  the 
aiicien  regime.  As  the  calm  had  lulled  men  in  the  present,  so  the 
storm  drove  them  back  to  the  past,  but  with  entirely  changed 
notions  of  man  and  civilization.  Under  the  notion  that  society 
is  a  vast  aggregate  of  forces,  developing  according  to  laws  of  its 
own,  all  history  has  been  re-written.  And  the  result  is  that 
with  the  single  exception  of  Gibbon,  the  historians  of  the  pre- 
ceding twenty  two  centuries  have  been   completely  superseded 


25 

by  the  historians  of  the  century  in  which  we  live.  Contem- 
porary history  is  sociological ;  earlier  history  was  individualistic. 
Our  broader  point  of  view,  our  deeper  insight  into  social  causes, 
our  fuller  knowledge  of  the  facts,  separate  our  historical  writings 
toto  cccio  from  those  of  preceding  centuries.'  But  as  works  of 
literary  art,  as  models  of  form  and  expression,  mankind  will 
continue  to  read  with  delight  the  products  of  the  old  artistic 
type  of  history,  which  it  is  the  glory  of  the  Greeks  to  have 
created,  and  adorned  by  compositions  that  remained  an  unap- 
proachable ideal  for  sixty  generations  of  mankind. 

The  first  example  of  the  modern  historical  method  was 
furnished  by  Winckelmann's  History  of  Greek  Art.  Applying 
the  idea  of  historical  development  to  a  single  branch  of  culture, 
he  described  its  growth,  phases,  and  decay  as  if  it  were  a  natural 
plant.  He  found  the  conditions  of  these  changes  in  the  pecul- 
iarities of  Greece,  of  Greek  character,  and  Greek  civilization  — 
in  climate,  air,  race,  religion,  customs,  and  political  develop- 
ment. This  was  in  1764,  two  years  before  the  appearance  of 
Herder's  "  Fragments."  Undoubtedly  Winckelmann  gave  new 
life  to  antiquity.  But  he  had  not  the  historical  divination 
which  enabled  Herder  first  to  see  in  early  Greek  heroes  chiefs 
of  clans,  and  not  conventional  princes  or  princelings  ;  or  to 
catch  the  spirit  of  primitive  mankind  in  their  songs,  epigrams, 
fables,  and  epics  ;  or  to  originate  a  new  conception  of  the 
growth  of  civilization,  and  apply  it  with  success  to  literature, 
law,  politics,  and  religion.  Herder  sowed  the  seed  of  the  new 
German  idea.  And,  lo,  the  fields  were  soon  white  with  harvest. 
Schelling  and  Hegel  reconstructed  philosophy ;  Niebuhr  and 
Savigny  re-wrote  the  history  of  the  Roman  state  and  Roman 
law  ;  Frederick  Schlegel,  Bopp,  and  Jacob  Grimm  created  com- 
parative philology ;  Ritter  and  Alexander  von  Humboldt  phy- 


26 

siographical  geography ;  and  William  Grimm  entered  upon  a 
new  line  of  research,  which,  in  our  own  day,  is  taking  shape 
as  comparative  mythology  and  religion.  Here  was  a  magna 
instaiiratio  of  the  humanistic  sciences.  And  the  movement, 
which  has  absorbed  the  best  minds  of  our  century,  is  still  in  full 
force.  So  that  we,  who  have  been  born  too  late  for  much  that 
is  striking  and  heroic  in  history,  have  yet  entered  into  the  fruition 
of  that  kingdom  of  man,  whose  coming  Bacon  foresaw  and 
longed  for,  but  whose  method  and  significance  he  only  faintly 
discerned. 

Our  boon,  however,  has  brought  its  burden  and  its  task. 
It  was  inevitable  that  the  new  kingdom  of  man  should  resist 
the  pretensions  put  forward  in  the  name  of  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven.  An'd  in  America,  at  least,  we  cannot  say  that  peace 
has  yet  been  restored.  Bacon  had  no  consciousness  of  our 
problem,  because  he  sharply  separated  theology  and  science, 
taking  the  one  on  authority  and  the  other -on  the  evidence  of 
complete  induction.  It  was  an  indolent,  not  to  say  cowardly, 
way  of  establishing  religious  faith  ;  as  much  opposed  to  the 
central  principle  of  Protestantism  as  to  the  dictates  of  honesty 
and  common  sense.  And  in  a  democracy  like  ours,  where  there 
is  no  privileged  class  or  church,  a  return  to  Bacon's  device, 
even  though  in  the  supposed  interests  of  religion,  is  a  manifest 
outrage  upon  conscience  and  intelligence.  It  is  true  that  faith 
is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not 
.seen.  But  the  hope  must  have  an  intelligible  basis ;  and  the 
unseen  must  rise  from  the  margin  of  the  seen.  I  do  not  mean 
that  every  man  must  be  a  philosopher.  Now,  as  always,  the 
vast  majority  will  get  their  religion  as  they  get  their  beliefs  and 
prejudices  about  other  things;  they  will  take  it  from  the  form 
and   pressure  of  their  social  environment.     lUit  I  mean  that 


27 

whenever  a  man  does  begin  to  reflect  upon  the  subject,  he  will 
recognize  that  religious  faith  demands  the  support  of  evidence 
in  precisely  the  same  way  as  scientific  belief  or  hypothesis. 

In  saying  this,  however,  I  shall  not  be  understood  to  attach 
much  importance  to  the  so-called  warfare  between  natural 
science  and  religion.  The  conflict  is  an  imaginary  one,  so  in- 
substantial that  I  can  liken  it  to  nothing  but  the  still  more 
imaginary  reconciliation.  How  any  discoveries  in  astronomy, 
geology,  or  biology  should  permanently  affect  a  man's  sense  of 
his  eternal  life  with  the  Spirit  of  all  spirits,  remains  absolutely 
inconceivable.  And,  in  truth,  the  so-called  warfare  between 
science  and  religion  never  had  any  other  meaning  (a  few  verses 
of  the  Bible  apart)  than  the  natural  inertia  of  ignorance 
when  acted  upon  by  knowledge.  In  the  history  of  mankind 
there  has  been  a  deathless  struggle  between  science  and 
nescience.  But  you  miss  its  essential  features  when,  following  ,/ 
the  mythological  instinct,  you  personif)-  nescience  as  the  / ' 
Christian  Church,  and  see  in  its  resistance  merely  the  hand  of 
priestly  power,  cunning,  and  ambition. 

The  religion  of  Christ  has  nothing  to  fear  from  natural  and 
physical  science.  And,  excepting  always  a  few  passages  like 
the  account  of  creation,  neither  has  the  most  literal  theology  that . 
has  ever  been  extracted  from  the  Bible.  But  Biblical  theology 
cannot  plead  the  same  independence  of  the  historical  sciences. 
The  sanctity  of  religion  could  not,  and  should  not,  protect  its 
literary  documents  from  re-examination  in  the  light  of  the  new 
German  idea  and  method  which  during  the  century  have  rev- 
olutionized our  notions  of  all  other  branches  of  human  civiliza- 
tion. Has  the  flood  of  love  and  light  with  which  Germany  has 
warmed  and  illuminated  the  past  quickened  all  the  sciences  of 
man,  save  that  which  deals  with  the  most  massive  and  perma- 


28 

iient  factors  in  human  life?  This  surely  is  inconceivable. 
The  German  gift  of  the  power  to  interpret  other  ages  and 
civilizations  by  means  of  the  historical  and  comparative 
method  has,  in  fact,  achieved  more  astounding  results  in  deal- 
ing with  the  Bible  than  with  any  other  subject.  Whether  we 
will  or  not  we  can  never  again  think  of  that  wonderful  book  as 
the  men  of  the  eighteenth  century  thought  of  it.  You  may 
abuse  the  Biblical  critics  from  Strauss  and  Bauer  to  Renan, 
Kuenen,  and  Wellhausen;  but  all  the  same  you  cannot  keep  what 
is  scientfic  in  their  views  from  fusion  with  the  thought  and 
culture  of  our  age.  This,  however,  need  not  prevent  us  from 
seeing  that  the  Old  Testament  is  a  faithful  record  of  the  grow- 
ing apprehension  and  reverence  of  God  by  his  children;  and 
that  the  New  Testament  gives  us,  in  the  life  of  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, a  wonderful  fulfilment  of  prophetic  yearning,  though  in 
a  far  higher  sense  than  mechanical  interpreters  were  wont  to 
suppose  ;  —  fulfillment  in  a  life  which  is,  shall  I  say,  the  miracle 
of  history,  or  rather  the  clear  revelation  of  the  fatherhood  ol 
God. 

"  They  are  all  based  on  history,"  says  Lessing,  in  Nathan 
der  JVeise,  of  the  three  great  religions  ot  the  world.  Chris- 
tian theology,  therefore,  must  be  progressive;  it  can  never 
stand  still.  When  Lord  Macaulay  declared  it  stationary,  he 
spoke  in  the  spirit  of  the  old,  not  in  the  spirit  of  the  new 
and  evolutionary  history.  We  must  learn  in  matters  of  faith, 
too,  to 

"  Rejoice  that  man 
Is  hurled  from  change  to  change  unceasingly." 

Or,  Still  better,  we  have  the  alternative  of  a  faith  so 
erounded  on  the  eternal  verities  and  established  in  the  soul  as  to 


29 

be  independent  of  time  and  circumstance,  which  form  the  sub- 
ject of  history.  The  witness  of  the  spirit  can  save  faith 
from  shipwreck  amid  the  shoals  and  quick-sands  of  that 
Biblical  criticism,  which  no  broad  thinker  can  to-day  ignore. 

Here  faith  and  philosophy  would  clasp  hands.  For  what 
the  speculative  thought  of  the  century  seems  to  be  making  ever 
clearer  is  that  the  old  divisions  between  man  and  God,  God  and 
the  world,  natural  and  supernatural,  knowledge  and  revelation, 
purpose  and  causation,  are  in  large  part  at  least  arbitrary  and 
illusory ;  and  that  a  philosophic  conception  of  all  existence 
leads  to  the  belief  in  an  infinite  spirit,  revealing  itself  in  diverse 
forms  and  with  various  degrees  of  reality,  but  reaching  its 
highest  manifestation  in  man,  who  not  only  exists  but  is 
conscious  of  his  existence,  and  as  special  partaker  of  the  life  of 
God  may  be  truly  said  in  Him  to  live,  and  move,  and  have  his 
being.  If  I  am  mistaken  in  regarding  this  as  the  religious 
outcome  of  the  centenary  movement  of  thought,  it  is  at  any 
rate  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished. 


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